XENIA RUBINOS started singing basically when she started talking.
“I guess it was a life dream to be a singer,” she tells me over the phone from her New York residence. “I idolized Mariah Carey when I was seven. I had, like, her poster on my door and it was a really big deal. And whenever a new record of hers would come out I would learn every word, and that was how I would spend most of my afternoons when I was six or seven—just obsessing over learning all these songs.”
Rubinos’ passion, focus, and creativity are immediately apparent, not to mention contagious. Years after she learned to nail Carey classics like “Someday” and “Vision of Love,” Rubinos attended Berklee College of Music in Boston where she studied jazz composition. But Rubinos soon discovered she couldn’t flourish as an artist and performer within the academic jazz tradition of interpreting a piece of existing music; she took a step back from the genre and learned how to write her own songs. Now, in support of her new album Black Terry Cat, she’s embarking on her first-ever national headlining tour.